Understanding Your Moods When You're Expecting: Emotions, Mental Health, and Happiness -- Before, During, and After Pregnancy

Introduction -Growing up as a young girl in Baltimore in the sixties and seventies, I watched in fascination as women fought for equal rights. But I didn't fully understand why they had to fight for them. As the firstborn child of a man who wanted a son, I was treated like one. My father claims I knew the names of all the positions on a football team by the time I was two. I was allowed to do anything the boys did. My father taught me how to throw an almost perfect spiral and how to shoot a rifle and hunt dove in the Rio Grande Valley. I read the books he'd read as a boy and couldn't imagine that girls could be treated differently than boys. From watching television, I knew about Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, and the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. I wasn't old enough to have a bra to burn, but I would have burned it if I had been. I was determined not to let the fact that I had been born female stop me, and my parents confirmed that I could do anything I wanted to do. A desire was born in me to accomplish something that made a difference. As a college student, I became involved in women's health issues and thought about becoming a midwife or an obstetrician. But as I watched the doctors working in the clinic where I volunteered, I became disillusioned with the way some of them dealt with their female patients. These doctors often treated the women's physical symptoms but ignored or trivialized their emotional complaints. When at age twenty-five I complained to my own gynecologist about having premenstrual mood swings, he literally patted me on the head and with a patronizing smile said, "Lots of women have that, honey. Don't worry about it." I was embarrassed and furious at the same time. I felt like an overly emotional little girl and angry that my complaint hadn't been taken seriously. At that moment, I decided that I would go to medical school and become a different kind of doctor. I would be a physician who listened and treated women with respect. I imagined myself as an obstetrician who sat by women's sides as they delivered their babies, listened to their stories, and educated them about their bodies. I began medical school and was soon confronted with the limitations of the health care system. I realized how difficult it would be to practice obstetrics in the way I'd fantasized. There doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for doctors to see as many patients as necessary to make a living and also to have a personal life outside of work. The legal climate forces physicians to practice defensive medicine, performing procedures that may not be necessary. New technology often causes doctors to treat lab results or monitors instead of patients. The few female obstetric residents I knew were subtly conditioned to act like their male counterparts - tough and efficient - to be respected. There was no handholding or staying with a woman while she labored. It was often the nurses who delivered the baby. The doctor's arrival was carefully timed to appear when the baby was almost born and there was not much left to do but cut an episiotomy and sew it up. It was not that the doctors were lazy or didn't want to be there; it was just that they had too many women to care for, had too much paperwork, and were too sleep deprived. In medical school, as I contemplated what the next step for me would be, I was torn. Delivering babies was fun. It is amazing to help a woman give birth through her struggles and her pain. I could watch the television show MaternityWard for hours on end and never tire of seeingLucy J. Puryear is the author of 'Understanding Your Moods When You're Expecting: Emotions, Mental Health, and Happiness -- Before, During, and After Pregnancy', published 2007 under ISBN 9780618341078 and ISBN 0618341072.